Page 71 of Forbidden Fruit
“Let go,” she begs as she kisses my salted lips.
Sobs rack my body, and Vanessa climbs on my lap, holding me to her as I bury my face in the crook of her neck. She continues to smell like peonies, candies and the last day of summer. I wish I could hold her like this for hours. I need the safe place of her arms to release emotions I can’t control, and probably have never dared to feel before. She lets me.
I hold her for a long time before we dry ourselves and take a walk in the neighbourhood, enjoying the heat of late summer, and the simplicity of her hand in mine. Before we pick up Anton and Livia, I call the doctor Jade recommended. The road will be long, but there isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for them.
Dr. Armand is a very small man in his fifties with a weathered but kind face, dressed like he’s about to go on a show about 1950’s male clothing fashion. I’m pretty sure his socks hold with sock garters under his elegant beige flannel pants.
The first session we had was draining. I didn’t know where to start, so we just started with rage and defeat. Rage that my ex-wife came back to wreak havoc upon the fragile heaven Vanessa and I are building, defeat that no matter what I do, I still feelinadequate and dark and like I’m never going to be ‘normal’. Routine has always helped keep the overwhelm at bay, but with all the changes I’ve experienced this year, it’s like the monster in my head is catching up to me and I’m too slow to avoid him any longer.
Dr. Armand’s been helping me reframe what ‘normal’ means to me, but I’m only on my third session. I have a long road ahead.
“What don’t you tell me how you’re feeling today, Lino?” Dr. Armand asks with his usual soft smile that invites a confession.
“Drained,” I answer immediately.
He doesn’t speak, and I know he’s waiting for me to add to what I just said. I look out his window to the patio shaded by majestic trees and adjust my glasses on my nose. I’m wearing loose fitted maroon pants and an aquamarine short-sleeved shirt that Vanessa loves but despite the comfortable clothes, the fabric seems to tighten around my body until it constricts my open throat.
I don’t look at my therapist as I answer him. “I’m drained, yet I did nothing today. I got up and ate what my girlfriend prepared for breakfast. I walked my kids to school and then I went back to sleep until I came here.” I should have been strategising how to take care of the pest problem that’s my ex-wife since I know she petitioned for shared custody and will no doubt show up unannounced again.
He hums and I know he’s about to make me see my day in a different light. It’s been as helpful as it’s been agonising. Recognising I’m not a failure. Allowing myself to be unwell, and to accept the help I get from him, Vanessa and even Pierce, who came to check on me and took me to golf with him. I hated every second of it and I’ve never been more grateful for a friend. The contrast is unsettling. He didn’t ask me anything. We just silently swung our clubs until my arms ached.
“From where I sit, it doesn’t sound like nothing,” Dr Armand. “Why don’t you retrace your steps and tell me all the things you actually did?”
I sigh. “I got up.”
“Excellent.”
“I ate.”
He nods, a paternal and satisfied tilt of his lips gracing his features.
“I took my children to school and hugged them. And I came here.”
He quirks a brow. His teasing has put me at ease since the beginning. There is none of the pity that I thought would be ever present when I stepped into his office. He doesn’t judge, listens, and allows me to be and come to my own conclusions. Of course, I knew that’s what therapists are meant to do but living it is a very different experience.
“You mentioned your girlfriend gave you a journal, didn’t you? I want you to start making a list of all the things you do during the day, even as mundane as they seem to be. Right now, you are weighted by the fallout of years of repressed emotions, and everything seems insurmountable. Yet, you wake up every morning and continue. And you show up here.”
“I do it for them, for my children and for my girlfriend. They deserve better.”
“Better than what, Lino?”
“Better than this shadow of a person I’m becoming.” My throat clogs and the words jumble up on their way out. “If I weren’t the way that I am, I would have never married someone as toxic as my ex-wife. I wouldn’t have let her manipulate me.”
“Ah, yes, but you wouldn’t have Anton and Livia, would you?” he asks and my heart clenches with the idea of not having them in my life.
“No, I wouldn’t. But if I was a better man, then I’d be a better father to my children, and she wouldn’t have destroyed our family,” I say, starting to get agitated. How can he not see what I am?
“But you just said she manipulated you, so tell me, Lino, why would you want her to stay? Especially with how highly you speak of Vanessa? Are you confused about your feelings for both women?”
“No!” I look at him then. “Vanessa is the love of my life. My ex-wife is just a thorn in my side and the mother of my children, that’s it.”
I drop my forearms to my knees. I just know that if this heaviness didn’t exist inside me, things would be different, better for the people I love.
“You love to beat yourself up for something you have no control over. And before you say anything to contradict me, you do,” he says kindly. I was going to cut him off and I appreciate the straightforwardness. “That’s part of how your depression manifests within you. It exists and you try to repress it and, therefore, it gets louder and makes you believe you are worth nothing. I want you to observe how you talk to yourself until I see you next, and if you can, when you catch yourself, I want you to replace that voice in your head with Vanessa’s or your children’s. How does that sound?”
“Like it’s going to cost me,” I answer truthfully. “But I appreciate that I can use techniques and tools like this.”
I leave his office feeling both heavier and lighter, the dual sensation confusing me and making me want to crawl into bed with Vanessa until I fall asleep. But as much as I can, I’m awake as long as the kids are, showing up for them if I don’t do anything else. The fact that Vanessa hasn’t run is a gift I don’t take for granted.